Fence!

This weekend Tony worked hard and put up the rails and most of the boards for the fence.

Here the rails are going up:


This is the same side with the boards up:


This is the back corner of the yard, you can see how the fence turns the corner and the section that isn't finished yet:


And this is a view from the street. We have a little side yard now with bamboo and hopefully soon some gravel where we can park a car occasionally.

Photos by Margaret

Margaret likes to dress up her little sisters and takes LOTS of pictures of them which is great fun and all but I usually don't post them because there are just SO MANY of them. Here is a small sampling of her work which I am posting because she captured some really cute expressions on the baby.



Anna wearing an Indian dress, and I'm not sure how to describe that face.



Anna in Ellie's mermaid costume,
apparently not clear on what the top is for:

Lost in Translation

We stopped in at the neighborhood Asian market to pick up some soba noodles and frozen squid and a few other essentials, and we picked up this:

Rice molds made in Japan,


With label translated into Engrish,


So Margaret can make lots of cute food.

Sunny Sunday Afternoon

Some photos taken from the back door:

Raised garden beds, awaiting plants:


Circus dog basking in the sunlight:


The first few fence posts:


Back corner of the yard, we finished setting the posts later that day, and we're ready to put up the fence. Hurray!

Anna and Grandpa

I meant to post this bit last week. Grandpa Jim drove up for the day with his power auger to help us dig fence post holes (Thank you Grandpa!) and to share his hat with Anna. She kept pulling it over her eyes, then walking around until she bumped into something. We tried to capture the cute, but the pictures don't quite get it. Here are a few anyway:

Another quick Ellieism

I have lots of things to post, but I had to add this first. This from Ellie this morning at breakfast after Margaret said she was very ANIMATED today: "I'm not animated. Anna is animated. I'm ELLIMATED."

April Fools

This morning, as I got up and headed down the hallway with Anna in tow, passing the bathroom, I glanced in and noticed a rather obvious crumpled piece of plastic wrap hanging down the side of the toilet. I continued into the kitchen and told Margaret to go and remove the plastic wrap, because this isn't really a funny joke and it would be very messy if someone went potty. She sheepishly went to remove the wrap, I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down to check my email.
When, a minute later, I heard a splashing noise behind me I looked back to see Margaret at the sink, covered with water, hastily removing a rubber band from the sprayer. This time she was apparently caught by her own trap.

I proceeded to give her a little talk about jokes that are funny and those that are just plain messy and mean and admonished her not to try and do anymore April Fools jokes. Her response: "I didn't mean to mom."

It seems she somehow accidently put plastic wrap on the toilet and a rubber band on the sink sprayer. Rrrrriiiiight.

Gotta love her :).